Chapter Text
“Log date, 6 5 1,” played a recording of Peridot’s voice.
“This has been the longest mission I have ever had the misfortune of being assigned.”
Pearl knew she shouldn’t, but she continued to listen. After all, she hadn’t deliberately started the playback of Peridot’s personal logs. No, Pearl had only meant to check if the waterlogged limb enhancers Lapis had retrieved from the ocean still worked. Peridot wasn’t able to figure out how to get them working again on her own, and it was only after she begrudgingly accepted Pearl’s help that any progress was made.
Besides, Peridot could be hiding something - like a premeditated plan to sabotage the Crystal Gems - for all Pearl knew.
“As of this log, I have officially spent over a third of my life on this miserable planet.”
Pearl rolled her eyes. That Peridot, melodramatic as always. Pearl would know. She continued to listen as she examined the inside of the enhancer. She discovered something peculiar – there didn’t seem to be any room for a hand in there, not even a tiny hand like Peridot’s.
“I don’t know when Yellow Diamond’s going to send someone down to find me…”
Pearl raised an eyebrow, quickly passing over this little discrepancy and instead focusing on the rest of the mechanical forearm, keeping her hands on it all the while, as she’d previously discovered that the limb enhancers were powered by contact with a gem’s projection.
“The worst part is I haven’t even finished my mission! I’m always being interrupted by those… Crystal Gems. Or as I call them, Crystal Clods! They’re a menace. Especially that-“
“Pearl!” Peridot’s voice sounded a lot clearer at the mention of Pearl’s name, almost as if she was right there. Which she was, standing on Steven’s porch with a wrench in her hand and a shocked look on her face. Pearl had to rectify this.
“Good news! I got them working!”
Peridot didn’t buy it. Of course she’d think Pearl did this on purpose, the two of them didn’t get along all that well and Peridot had done more than enough to Pearl to elicit snooping. Still, feeling like she wasn’t trusted hurt for Peridot, and although she didn’t think of herself as at all emotional, Pearl could see it clearly written on her face and hear it in her voice.
“Wow. Thanks,” Peridot growled through her teeth, then walked over to Pearl and snatched the enhancer from her hands. “I’ll just put these on.”
Once Peridot gathered the rest of her set and headed through the door back into the beach house, Pearl felt a pang of guilt. As much as she didn’t like Peridot’s nasty attitude and her poor handling of other people’s feelings, Pearl still felt bad for snooping on Peridot’s personal files. She wasn’t that gem any more, and Pearl had no right. Yet then again, Peridot could have been hiding something, and her huffy reaction seemed to point towards that.
Pearl thought about it for a while, then decided to let it go. Even if Peridot was planning something, the Crystal Gems have taken her down before and could do it again.
Peridot carried her enhancers into the beach house and headed towards the warp pad, where she spotted Steven sitting with his head in his hands. It was quite clear to her how he was feeling, but she knew that a good friend still asked.
“Steven, are you alright? What happened?”
“Amethyst wanted to enter this colouring competition, but you have to be under 7 years old to enter.”
Peridot recalled that humans’ appearances differed according to age.
“Can’t she just shapeshift?”
“No, that’s cheating!”
“I thought you were rebels!”
“But this is supposed to a fair and square competition, and it’s not right to lie about your age.”
This sparked an idea. Peridot remembered what Pearl had overheard. If her suspicions about Pearl were correct, everyone else would soon know she certainly was not, as currently believed, thousands of years old. It would be so fitting for that petty Pearl to go and tell everyone, she thought. Peridot quickly calculated her age from date of emergence, then converted it to the orbital period of Earth.
She placed her limb enhancers down, then sat down next to Steven on the warp pad.
“According to your planet’s time scale, It’s been four years, nine months and eleven days since my date of emergence.”
Steven leant back, raising both eyebrows.
“What, really? You’re four years old?”
“Five, if you round to the nearest year,” Peridot stated with a grin, pointing a thumb at her puffed-out chest. “I’ll enter this ‘colouring competition’.”
Steven looked up at her, starry-eyed. “You’d do that?”
Peridot nodded.
“Colouring is art, right? It’ll be easy!”